Making hand milled soap is an easy way to learn how to make soap for beginners. Keep reading to learn how to make hand milled soap with an easy charcoal & anise soap recipe from Amanda Gail Aaron’s new book, The Complete Guide to Natural Soap Making.

New Natural Soap Making Book

Is soap making a new hobby you’ve been wanting to explore? Have you made soap before but want to learn other soap making techniques? Learn a variety of soap making methods and explore easy to follow soap recipes and tutorials in Amanda Gail’s new book, The Complete Guide to Natural Soap Making.

As we discover in Amanda Gail’s new book, there are many different ways to make soap. New and beginning soapmakers will learn how to craft natural homemade soaps using five different soap making techniques. These natural soap making methods include:

Hand Milled Soap Making

Melt and Pour Soap Making

Liquid Soap Making

Hot Process Soap Making

Cold Process Soap Making

In addition to comprehensive, easy to follow soap making tutorials, Amanda’s book also contains numerous natural soap recipes. Each of these recipes enable you to explore all of the soap making methods mentioned, then further build on that knowledge. In addition, you’ll also gain insight on essential soap making equipment and ingredients you need to get started. The book also contains insider soap design tricks and soap making techniques that will further guarantee your success.

Regardless of your preferred soap making method, you’ll find that soap making quickly becomes an addictive hobby. Therefore it won’t be long until you’re not only supplying natural soaps for your family, but for friends and coworkers too! You’ll also begin to build the foundation for achieving not just your soap making goals, but for starting a business to sell your natural soaps.

What Is Hand Milled Soap?

Two of the easiest ways for beginners to get started in soap making are through melt and pour soap making and hand milled soap making. While most of you are likely familiar with making melt and pour soap using a glycerin soap base, you may be less familiar with how to make hand milled soap.

If you’re looking for an easy (and affordable) way to learn how to make soap for beginners, then I highly recommend you learn how to make hand milled soap. You’ll find, that if you’re already a fan of handmade soaps, making hand milled soap is a great way to use up leftover soap slivers. It also allows you to customize your natural soaps with ingredients that offer additional benefits for your skin type.

Hand milled soaps are created by rebatching unscented (or leftover) soaps on the stovetop or in an oven. This is done to add scent and color, conditioning skin care ingredients or to salvage a botched cold process soap batch. Typically one makes hand milled soap by grating an existing soap bar, then mixing it will milk or water. Once the soap melts, other ingredients can be added to customize the fragrance, color or other properties of the soap.

Hand milling soap is an easy way to learn how to make custom natural soaps. The process is easier than making soap completely from scratch in which you combine lye and soap making fats. It’s also a safer process for anyone who has pets or small children in the home.

How to Make Hand Milled Soap

I hope that you’re as excited as I was the first time I learned how to make hand milled soap. Amanda was gracious enough to share her charcoal & anise hand milled soap recipe from her new book, which you can find below.

Anise & Charcoal Natural Soap Recipe

This stark black hand milled soap is naturally scented with anise, peppermint and lavender essential oils. Formulated with an easy to use hand milled soap base, this homemade soap recipe also contains activated charcoal. The addition of charcoal makes this hand milled soap perfect for acne prone skin, as charcoal works to draw out impurities, oils and toxins from skin.

Following is Amanda’s recipe for charcoal & anise soap (from her book) along with her instructions on how to make hand milled soap. This recipe yields four hand milled soap bars, each weighing approximately 113 grams. It can be made from start to completion in about an hour. You can use pre-bought soap shreds for this recipe. Alternately, you can also grate your own soap from bars of unscented cold or hot process soap.

This homemade cold process egg soap recipe is made with egg yolks. Eggs have long offered skin care benefits that include tightening skin, shrinking pores, and calming redness and breakouts.

In cold process soap, egg yolks also help to create a rich, thick lather. If you’re looking for something eggs-stra fun to create this Easter, try making this luxurious homemade cold process egg soap recipe in lieu of – or in addition to – traditional Easter eggs.

Soap Notes:

This homemade cold process egg soap recipe will yield 10-12 bars of soap approximately 4 oz. each depending on how they are cut and fits inside my DIY wooden loaf soap mold.

There is zero egg smell to this cold process egg soap recipe once it has cured. I noticed a slight smell when I first cut my homemade egg soap into bars, however it had completely dissipated by the next day and smelled only like the fragrance oil I’d used for my own batch.

You’ll need to begin with eggs that are room temperature so I suggest removing your eggs from the refrigerator ahead of starting the soapmaking process. Crack the eggs open and separate the whites and yolk from two eggs. You’ll only be using the yolks for this egg soap recipe so feel free to scramble up the whites in an omelet! Alternately you could simply use one egg in its entirety – both the white and yolk – for a somewhat different result. While egg yolks serve as a fat in a cold process egg soap recipe, the protein in egg whites are believed to have an astringent effect on skin.

Once your eggs have reached room temperature, you are ready to begin the soapmaking process.

Begin the soapmaking process for this egg soap recipe by first measuring out the distilled water in fluid ounces. (Alternately you can use rosewater in place of the distilled water if you’re after a face specific soap.) Pour into a heat safe pitcher. Next, using a digital scale weigh out the lye. Slowly pour the lye into the water in a well ventilated area and stir until all the lye has dissolved. Set aside to cool.

Now weigh out the palm kernel flakes, coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil, safflower oil, castor oil and rice bran oil using a digital scale and combine in a stainless steel pot. Heat until all of the oils have melted, then remove from heat and set aside.

Next weigh out your fragrance oil, if you’re choosing to scent your egg soap, and set aside. (You can also use essential oils in lieu of a fragrance oil, but you’ll want to use half the amount.)

Now measure out the kaolin clay and set aside.

Once the lye-water and soapmaking oils have cooled to around 90°F you’re ready to make this egg soap recipe.

You’ll need to begin by tempering your egg yolks. To do this remove about a cup of oil from your cooled soapmaking oils into a cup or bowl. Add the egg yolks and mix well with a whisk, fork or even a stick blender. Set aside.

Now slowly pour the lye-water into the soapmaking oils. Mix with a stick blender until you reach a light trace, then add the clay, fragrance, and egg-oil mixture. Mix again until the soap starts to thicken again and all ingredients are fully blended into the soap, then pour the soap into your prepared mold.

Lightly cover the soap with cardboard but don’t insulate the soap loaf.

After 24 hours you can unmold your homemade nut free soap loaf and cut it into bars. Allow your soaps to cure 4-6 weeks before use, then wrap and label as desired.

Want to try eggs in your own homemade cold process soap recipe? Give it a try! Just be sure to bring your eggs to room temperature and temper your eggs in your cooled soapmaking oils to avoid an eggy smell or scrambled eggs. then add the tempered eggs at a light trace.

Want to try your own homemade soap recipe for your acne but aren’t quite ready to delve into cold process soapmaking? Try this quick and easy activated charcoal melt and pour soap recipe instead! This homemade activated charcoal melt and pour soap recipe starts with a quality, all natural yogurt soap base. Four simple ingredients are then added to not only help control acne but to also soothe skin and promote healing. These ingredients are some of my favorites.

• Sea Buckthorn Oil – This concentrated oil has anti-inflammatory properties that help to calm aggravated skin. Additionally, it not only helps to fight acne but it also possesses healing properties that will help to prevent acne scars from occurring. Sea Buckthorn oil is probably best praised, however, for its restorative and anti-aging properties.

• Activated Charcoal – Activated charcoal naturally helps to detoxify skin of impurities, draw out dirt and oil, and, in melt and pour soap it also acts as a mild exfoliant. It’s also suitable for those prone to eczema and psoriasis.

• Patchouli Essential Oil – Patchouli offers its own anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties to this soap. It’s commonly used in skin care for its ability to tackle acne prone skin, eczema, inflammation, and cracked or chapped irritated skin. It’s also prized for its cell-rejuvenating properties and its ability to lessen the look of scars. In addition it can also help to balance out oily skin.

• Lavender Essential Oil – Lavender is prized for its acne fighting and healing properties as well as its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. It serves to treat acne and soothe skin while also helping to prevent scarring.

• Yogurt Melt and Pour Soap Base – This melt and pour soap base is all natural and free of SLS and detergents. Plus its made with real yogurt which when applied topically has been shown to fight acne, moisturize and help to prevent premature aging.

Ingredients:

Directions:

This activated charcoal melt and pour soap recipe will yield one bar of soap that weighs about 5 oz.

To make this soap begin by weighing out the soap base using a digital scale. Cube the soap base using a Chef’s knife and combine in a large glass Pyrex measuring cup then microwave for 30 seconds watching carefully as you don’t want your soap base to boil. Remove and stir then heat again if needed to melt the soap base all the way through.

This all natural homemade facial soap recipe is wonderful for several reasons. One, it’s simple to make and is perfect for those who want to customize their own homemade soaps without delving into making cold process soaps with lye or using a melt and pour soap base. And two, it allows you to “beef” up your soap with ingredients your skin craves that are often too costly to use during the cold process soapmaking method. Adding them after the soap is made, allows you to not only use less of the ingredient, but also gain the benefits without fear the desired properties will be lost during the saponification process.

For this homemade facial soap recipe I added ingredients suited to dry and/or maturing skin. I do that a lot, I know, but next year is the big 4-0 and I’m trying to save face – literally – for as long as I can. It’s then ever so lightly scented with lavender and chamomile essential oils. If you have combination skin like I do that is prone to breakouts, you can add some tea tree oil to this recipe as well or even sub the rosehip seed oil with something like hazelnut oil which is a natural astringent. After all, customizing recipes to suit you is half the fun. The other half is finally getting to enjoy the end result!

Directions:

I used my own unscented goat milk soap for this recipe that I grated two days after unmolding it. Fresher soap is easier to grate, however, the age of the soap isn’t super important. Using cold process handmade soap, however, is of utmost importance as typical commercial soaps aren’t really soap but are rather made of harsh foaming agents. These don’t rebatch quite the same way. (You can find my recipe for making an easy cold process goat milk soap here. To re-size the batch superfat at 6-7% with a 33% water discount.)

Begin by grating the unscented soap bars or loaf. Weigh out 28 oz. of soap using a digital scale and combine in a large stainless steel pot on the stove. Weigh out the water and add to the grated soap. Do the same with both the shea and cocoa butters. Then, using measuring spoons, measure out and add the powdered coconut milk, kaolin clay and rosehips powder. Set the heat on medium and mix, stirring occasionally.

Once the shea and cocoa butters have melted, reduce the heat to low and allow the soap to “cook” for a short time until it looks like it’s melting, then weigh out the rosehip seed oil, sea buckthorn oil and essential oils and stir into the soap until thoroughly combined.

Spoon the soap into your mold and allow the soap to harden fully before removing from the mold. If you used fresh soap allow your soap to finish curing for 3-6 weeks. If your soap was already cured, you can start using your new homemade facial soap whenever you like.

Activated charcoal soaps are super popular for helping to fight acne. And for good reason! They really work on acne prone skin. So I decided to take the classic lavender and tea tree soap combo that’s been used traditionally to help fight acne and combine it with activated charcoal.

This well balanced combination of soapmaking oils, activated charcoal and essential oils make my homemade lavender and tea tree soap recipe with activated charcoal great for anyone prone to acne regardless of skin type.

Instructions:

Using a digital scale begin by weighing out the water and lye separately, then pour the lye slowly into the distilled water and mix until all of the lye has dissolved. Set aside to cool.

Now prepare your soapmaking oils by weighing them out and combining in a large stainless steel pot. Heat on the stove over medium heat until all oils have melted then remove from heat and allow to cool.

Once the lye-water and oils have cool to about 100°F mix the lye-water and oils together using a stick blender. At light trace add the essential oils and activated charcoal and mix completely, then prepare into your prepared soap mold. (This soap recipe will fit in one of my DIY wooden loaf soap molds and yields 10-12 bars.) Cover and insulate for 24 hours.

After the insulation period, unmold the soap loaf and cut into bars. Allow to cure 3-6 weeks before use, then wrap and label as desired.